


Dragon In The Garden

by Ones_And_Zeroes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, Depression, Herbology Professor Neville Longbottom, Hogwarts Professors, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Professor Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23682538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ones_And_Zeroes/pseuds/Ones_And_Zeroes
Summary: Neville is a broken man, he threw himself into the various wilds of the world to run from his problems. and despite being one of the wizarding world's leading herbologists he hasn't yet healed.Draco has spent six years hunting down his former allies and friends, and despite his attempts to make amends for his mistakes as a child he has found that the wizarding world isn't entirely forgiving.Six years after the Battle of Hogwarts, the castle is finally ready to reopen, and Headmaster McGonagall has asked both men to come fill out her staff.Six years isn't long for a group of combatants to recover from a horrific battle.
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33





	1. Broken Hearts, Broken Men

Neville Longbottom was relatively sure he was about to die.

He had just given a rather rousing and rebellious speech to a Dark Lord and his army, so he was rather surprised when he saw a sword arcing up, watching as it severed Nagini’s head from her shoulders.

It took him a moment to process; he was so… so tired. Neville knew, somewhere in his exhausted mind, that Harry had told him about Nagini being a Hor- _something_ , that they _had_ to kill her. Harry _Potter_ needed it, the same Harry Potter who was hanging limply in Hagrid’s arms. The Battle for Hogwarts as it would later be called had been raging for less than a day, but for him and the other members of the Resistance, it had essentially been going on all year. The Death Eaters had been waging a war of attrition against children. Of course they were winning, and the resistance was so tired. So damn tired.

Voldemort’s screams of rage heralded the raging of the Battle again, heralded the flinging of curses and spells, and so too began the screams once more.

Neville slowly sat up from his bed, his body drenched in a cold sweat. It had been six years and some change since the Battle of Hogwarts, since Voldemort had died, and Neville no longer shot up from bed with a wand in his hand. Six years since the good guys had lost a lot of good guys. He ran the names of those he had _known_ through his head as he often did, or those who he had seen fall with his own eyes, those names he would often forget throughout the day only to draw back with a painful _oh_ had somehow become a painful mantra that calmed him after a nightmare.

_Fred. Remus. Tonks. Katie Bell. Colin Creevey. Cormac McLaggen. Anthony Goldstein. Astoria Greengrass. Marietta Edgecombe. Megan Jones. Hannah Abbot. Professor Sprout._

He had stories about all of them. Most he had met through the Resistance; the student rebellion Neville had somehow cobbled together and ended up leading against insurmountable odds. Not everyone in their hastily built student rebellion had died, but enough had in that final desperate struggle that Neville, now nearly twenty-four years old, still woke up in cold sweats most nights thinking about them.

He lay back down, after muttering a quick well-memorized charm with his wand to dry the sweat, and huffed to himself. He no longer slept with the wand in his hand, but it was always within reach.

He pondered whether it would be worth it to try to go back to sleep or not. He had to apparate to Hogwarts in the morning, which was a few scant hours away with how early the sun rose in the early summer. Neville suspected that the nightmare had been a bit more vivid than usual with the thought of returning to the castle where he had spent his youth and where that youth had died. His heart felt like it was going to jump out of his chest, and the sun hadn’t even risen yet.

His heartbeat was the usual constant to Neville’s nightmares, even if he no longer got the panic attacks.

Deciding that trying to sleep again would be a fruitless exercise, Neville rose and made himself an early breakfast. As he ate his fruit and toast, a light breakfast usually helped settle his frantic stomach, he contemplated the situation that he had willingly put himself into. He ignored the letter on the table that had put him on his current path.

The Battle had done _extensive_ damage to Hogwarts’ structure, he vaguely remembered watching in horror as Gryffindor Tower crumbled and fell, and as a result much of the inherent magic of the place had leaked into the other magics of the castle, making the former institution of learning entirely uninhabitable.

For the last few years, the children that would have been students to Hogwarts had been shipped to other institutions of learning: Beauxbatons, Durmstag, Ilvermony, and other smaller private institutions in the UK had attempted and for the most part succeeded, in absorbing the overflow.

Finally, after six years, the dangers of the castle had been either decontaminated or contained enough to allow people back onto the grounds.

Which brought Neville’s involvement in the revival of Hogwarts: Hogwarts’ staff had been decimated.

Pomona Sprout had been killed in front of Neville’s very eyes. She had been his hero, what he had wanted to be as an adult wizard, and she had died gasping for air as Neville urged her to hold on after being hit by some sort of horrifying curse that left her gasping for but unable to absorb any air. He had never even seen who had thrown the curse, just that they had been trying to make it to the greenhouses one moment and the next Professor Sprout had been looking with terrified eyes to Neville as her face turned blue. He shuddered every time he remembered how her grip had become so strong and then disappeared entirely at the moment of her death.

After the battle Neville had fled. He had used his Longbottom fortune and the status that being part of the Sacred 28, something he had previously not cared about, to open doors to travel the world to become a magical flora specialist. In addition to being known now as one of the most talented herbologists of his age, he had also accumulated a fairly famous collection of plants from around the world with his fortune.

At the end of his wild world tour Neville was starting to find it difficult to find somewhere to go. He had first gone to Asia, where even with his influence he found it hard to get around due to mistrust. He had then ran to Africa where he found the people kind and inviting, often more knowledgeable than British wizards, but found sticking around one place for too long unbearable.

America and Canada had helped him a lot; he had finally gotten help for his quickly deteriorating mental condition. He was lucky he had gotten help there, he was relatively sure he wouldn’t still be alive if he hadn’t. A few wizards and witches on his journey had remarked that he seemed to repeatedly throw himself into dangerous situations, at one point he had almost lost his arm to a Fanged Willow Tree.

Nevertheless, he finally ended up in Brazil and from there to the reclusive communities in the Amazon. The newly acquired Longbottom greenhouses were packed to nearly overflowing at that point, and Neville had received the letter as he had debated traveling to a new wizarding country that had been founded on the edge of Antarctica, he had heard they had some rare plants there that flourished in the ice.

But he couldn’t run anymore, at least as far as Minerva McGonagall was concerned.

So he had returned to Britain, and after a couple months of… existing Neville guessed he could call it, had opened the letter from McGonagall. Hogwarts needed both a new Herbology professor and new plants to replace the majority of the greenhouses that had died with six years of neglect and damage. Headmaster McGonagall had thought he could fill that void, obviously not knowing that Neville wasn’t the same person that had left Hogwarts. Neville, for some reason beyond his understanding, had accepted.

Neville was much more in shape now, hacking through the Amazon helped with that. He knew most people would categorize him as muscular, he finally had the physique that he had dreamed of as a chubby eleven year old, but when Neville looked in the mirror he just saw the raggedness of who he had become. Nobody would ever look at him and know he was a part of the 28, although many people along his journey hadn’t seemed to mind and tried to shag him anyways. Neville hadn’t really been interested.

His shaggy hair and closely shorn facial hair combined with his shabby and weathered clothing had kept him from even returning to the main Longbottom Estate, Hearthome, to face his Gran.

He knew she wouldn’t understand.

He had been staying at one of the Longbottom properties which he had already inherited: Nettle Moor. It had been a sad little summer house off the mainland of Scotland when he had found it; disused for a few generations and isolated from society. Neville had greenhouses installed and had filled them during his travels, he had the entire five bedroom home renovated as well; had built his own private refuge so that he didn’t have to see anyone ever again.

Whenever he looked around at his life, he loathed the angry recluse that he had become; maybe it was why he had accepted McGonagall’s letter.

He had only returned to Britain six months ago now, had been preparing to leave for Hogwarts for four of those, and he was terrified of the prospect of what he was about to do; he was mostly afraid of letting people he had known see what kind of state he was in.

Other than a house-elf and a couple assistant gardeners who lived in a cottage on the other end of the property and who knew better than to try to talk to him regularly, Neville hadn’t had any social interaction since his return to Britain. Why he _had_ agreed to deal with a throng of children was beyond him.

He stepped out of his home with the dawn, and gave the moors one final look before he said goodbye for the year. He had found the moors in the morning a comforting quiet view. He walked among his greenhouses, the safer ones anyways, and brushed his hands in greeting over the plants. He said hello to them as they raised their leaves to greet the morning sun. The gardeners knew at this point that this was Neville’s private ritual, one he preferred to spend alone.

Neville liked being alone these days.

He left the greenhouses, not bothering to say goodbye to the gardeners. He wasn’t sure that he even knew their names. He grabbed his trunk and his most prized possession, Trevor. Trevor was just about the only thing Neville talked to these days, the only constant in his life since Hogwarts.

Trevor the toad had grown a lot since his Hogwarts days, the squat amphibian was almost a foot tall now, and Neville struggled to get a good grip on him under his arm.

“Need to start watching your diet Trev.” Neville said, punctuated with an irritated grunt. Trevor didn’t really seem to think much of that plan of action, replying with an unimpressed croak. “At least it’s harder to lose you these days.”

Neville turned on the spot and apparated to Hogsmeade, taking the first step to returning to the worst place he had ever experienced.

Neville was returning to Hogwarts.

***

Draco looked down at the letter written in green ink in irritation as he had done every day for six months.

He was irritated that he had accepted the offer, and he was angry that he had no other choice _but_ to accept it. Work hadn’t exactly been flowing in since the War. Also the green ink was tacky, and McGonagall shouldn’t have kept using it.

He had arrived to Hogwarts a month ago, other than Headmaster McGonagall (Minerva she was trying to make him call her, preposterous) and Hagrid he had been the first staff member to arrive. His six years since the battle had been spent at the only place that would accept an ex-Death Eater like him, if begrudgingly: hunting down Death Eaters and fighting on the frontlines of what remained of their cause. Of his cause. His Father’s excuse of Imperius in the First War had made the rest of the wizarding world not entirely trustful of Draco’s turncoating in the Second. Many were still expecting him to send up the Dark Mark at any given time

How McGonagall had convinced anyone to let him teach children was beyond him.

The years of fighting had given him skills that made him perfectly qualified for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, at least in McGonagall’s eyes, and Draco was so tired of fighting. Hunting Dark Wizards rarely afforded the luxury of a comfortable bed, a situation which Draco found untenable.

So there Draco stood, one gloved hand and one bare hand gripping the letter with irritation, just staring. The majority of the other staff members would be arriving over the next few days. They had a few meager months to populate the mostly bare castle with all the trappings they would need to run a successful magical school, one with the reputation of Hogwarts.

Luckily McGonagall and the Board of Governors had been smart enough to realize that Hogwarts wasn’t prepared to hold its full capacity of students on its first year: they had decided to do what the original Founders had done: start fresh.

They would only have First Years this year. Those First Years next year would be Second Years when the new Firsts came in, and so on and so forth. Hogwarts would, in seven years, be full again. It had been met with disappointment for many, there would have been a returning class of Seventh years as few as would likely want to return, and there was an entire nation who wanted their children taught at their traditional school.

Whether all of those new staff members and students would accept him, an ex-Death Eater in a not-so-far-gone war, as a teacher to protect Britain’s most cherished possessions was yet to be seen.

He set the letter down with a sigh and looked about his meager quarters and the furnishings his even more meager wages at Hogwarts could afford, and moved to the window of his solarium. He lived in the top level of the dungeons that overlooked the lake. He had been amused to find out that one thing that had stayed from the old Hogwarts had been the… eccentric staff quarters. Speckled through the castle every residential room was wildly different, although Draco supposed they had mostly been more or less the same hundreds of years ago. However, over hundreds of years each staff member had seemed to add more and more to unique features to the room. McGonagall had said it was almost tradition for a staff member to leave their mark on a room.

Draco had gone through about fifteen rooms, ranging in strangeness from one that constantly had what sounded like wind-chimes aggressively playing through the room to one that had a strange pool in the middle that was spewing a strange silver-ish vapour that relaxed him but left him light-headed. In the end he had settled on the least strange one he could find that was in the dungeons (Draco supposed old Slytherin habits died hard).

He had ended up with a room that had an attached aviary/solarium, the birds in the solarium were rather noisy but kept care of themselves: there was a window that would vanish whenever one of the birds wanted to leave or enter and rematerialize after. The solarium was filled with an abundance of mundane herbs and other plants, and to his pleasure many of them were varieties of tea. He had found an old book that named a Care of Magical Creatures professor as the origin of the birds, and an old Herbology professor as the origin of the solarium. The small potions station tucked into a nook in the sitting room didn’t hurt how much Draco liked the quarters.

After verifying that the birds didn’t defecate in the solarium, Draco had quickly taken it after seeing what his alternatives were. He didn’t particularly like the birds but in the mornings he liked to take tea in the room, and he didn’t need to go to the owlery as his owl could roost in his quarters.

Draco considered it his first home in six years, or at least a more permanent dwelling than the hastily erected camps he was used to. The Death Eaters had really gone to ground.

He looked at the long list of things that needed to done before students arrived: namely he was going to be assisting the other professors in building whatever sections of the castle they needed to suit their curriculums. He would be working closely with Flitwick, the tiny Charms professor almost seemed younger than he had been six years ago, to prepare the many things the other professors needed for their classrooms. He had already been helping the inept Hagrid in setting up the enclosures and magical barns he needed for the Care of Magical Creatures curriculum they would be starting for the First Years, the half-giant had been finally allowed a wand but wasn’t very skilled with it. Hagrid was… less warm than Draco remembered, likely a side effect of Draco torturing Hagrid for seven years.

He took a deep breath and decided to face the day. Having already had his breakfast, he strolled along the corridors enjoying the solitude of the near-empty castle knowing the quiet wouldn’t last long.

As he entered the Entrance Hall he raised his eyebrows with interest as the great doors opened. He could see the lumbering figure of Hagrid, who raised a tentative hand of greeting to Draco, who quickly moved aside to allow a few newcomers in. The majority of faces he didn’t know, they were chatting animatedly amongst themselves, and behind them a familiar face. He couldn’t place his finger on it, even though he knew that he definitely knew that he did know them, until he saw the massive toad propped under his arm.

“Longbottom.” Malfoy uttered quite unintentionally before he was aware that he had intended to speak. He had been caught by surprise, Longbottom had gotten considerably more attractive and fit since he had last seen him, if a bit gaunt looking. Something was different about his eyes, even from a distance he didn’t quite look like he was all there.

All six staff members stopped and looked across the floor at Malfoy from across the echoing marble hall, scattered recognition melting into disdain, his reputation obviously preceding him to the majority of the staff members.

“Ay, Draco! I was just about to come lookin’ for ye! Meet a few of th’new staff arrivals!” Hagrid said animatedly (Draco still had to hold back calling him an oaf, even after all these years), gesturing widely as if Draco couldn’t see them all before him. “There are a few more coming in tomorrow, but that should be all of them until the beginning of the year!”

The staff members all gave him weak smiles and waves but otherwise didn’t say much.

Longbottom only spared a moment to stop and a glance in his direction before he continued on to the Great Hall where Draco knew McGonagall was likely waiting to greet them as she had waited for him. Draco tried not to let it bother him, Longbottom had never been his biggest fan and he hadn’t seen him since that final horrifying and disasterous year at Hogwarts when Draco had often been on the other side of a wand.

He quickly and uncomfortably exchanged pleasantries with the other staff members, he could tell they were mostly surprised that he was pleasant, and he left them to follow the long-retreated Longbottom as he left the Entrance Hall with Hagrid. They were to try to wrangle the Thestral herd today, he had enough on his plate. He didn’t entertain the thought of helping them settle in, Draco wasn’t particularly looking for friends.

-

Neville felt his fingers dig into the earth, the coolness of the soil soothing his hands and frayed nerves.

He had woken with the dawn, the oft experienced nightmare of Sprout dying in his arms playing behind his eyes. It had been a few hours since the sun had risen, but Neville’s body still screamed: _He was at Hogwarts. He was in danger._

So he had ambled down to the greenhouses, and buried his hands in the soil, and pretended that planting Whisperbush saplings was calming him down. The saplings would be tended by the first years, their harmless branches moving as if a light wind was always blowing through them, the first years who in a couple of months would be running through his greenhouses.

Other than Greenhouse Four the majority of Hogwarts’ greenhouses were barren, six years of neglect and damage from the Battle had killed all but the Venomous Tentacula that had throuroughly taken over the fourth greenhouse.

Neville hadn’t even began to think of entering Greenhouse Four, the giant Venus Flytrap like plant had taken over completely. They didn’t need Greenhouse Four until there were third years, so Neville put it low on his level of priorities unless the Tentacula tried to stray beyond the confines of its house. Sprout’s quarters had been in Greenhouse Four as well, and he had no intention of dealing with that. He might be emotionally damaged, but he was smart enough to know that much he couldn’t handle that, not yet.

He had many other projects to work on, ones that he had to complete by September. He was still receiving regular shipments from Nettle Moor, a large portion of his collection would be the initial seeds of Hogwarts future Herbology curriculum, and the majority of them still needed to be planted.

He was pleased that McGonagall hadn’t pushed him to be more social, takenaback as she was at who Neville had seemingly become in the previous years. He took most of his meals alone in his quarters and had only sparing and mandatory interactions with the other staff, and from the rare conversations he had with the Headmistress over the previous three weeks since arriving at Hogwarts he gathered that she wasn’t too terribly pleased with his level of conversation.

He was pulled out of his reverie as he tapped down the earth around one of the last Whisperbushes, the fence that ringed the greenhouses was incredibly loud and needed to be oiled, another task that Neville planned to get to at some point. He did rather enjoy the alarm system it provided. It was low on his list of priorities.

He decided to not go looking for whoever had decided to encroach on his greenhouses, which is why when Harry Potter found him ten minutes later Neville could tell that the muscled Quidditch player was disgruntled.

“Neville! Been looking for you, you weren’t in your rooms!” Harry said, foregoing any sort of formal greeting other than a rough slap on the shoulder, even though they hadn’t seen each other in six years. He felt Harry’s eyes graze over him, his judgmental gaze was becoming people’s default look at him lately, as he finally decided to rise to face Harry.

Harry clasped Neville’s hand, dirty as it was, and shook it vigorously despite Neville’s obvious discomfort, already chattering on about… something. Neville had accidentally tuned out, so he held up a hand to stop Harry’s apparent stream of consciousness.

_Neville caught a glance of Harry, twisting and cursing a Death Eater over his shoulder as he sprinted down the hallway._

“Wait, what were you saying?” Neville said, hearing how weary his voice sounded and wincing in spite of himself, already tired from trying to not remember. He had forgotten how exhausting Harry was to be around sometimes. “I accidentally spaced out.”

“I’m coming to set up Hogwarts’ flying program. With Hooch retiring I thought it was the least I could do.” Harry said, his eyes darkening for a moment as he likely thought of the last time they had both been on the grounds, just as Neville was doing. “I’m taking a season off from the League, the Cannons already approved it and everything.”

Neville grunted in reply, he thought that the least Harry could do would be to kill Voldemort, which he had done six years ago. He vaguely remembered that Harry had made his professional Quidditch debut a few years ago, but he had stopped following that facet of the wizarding world as he travelled; he had never really been that into Quidditch before he left. He had somehow missed that Harry was going to be joining the Staff this year, but he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised since Harry generally seemed to like to be in the thick of things. He wondered how forcefully the Boy Who Lived had insisted that he be on staff.

_Hagrid stumbled into the courtyard, sobbing as he carried the limp body of Harry. His friend._

Harry narrowed his eyes searchingly, finally reacting how most people reacted. Neville supposed he was trying to find out what exactly had changed about Neville other than how he was even quieter these days. Neville was trying to find these things out too.

_Harry tumbled out of Hagrid’s arms, flailing before he hit the ground. In a moment he was up and casting curses as the battle resumed around him once again._

“Its good to see you Harry, however I have a lot of work to do, so unless you intend to help me with planting…” Neville trailed off, not sure if he could deal with the reminders of his past that Harry was giving him.

Harry turned and faced the supplies that filled the unplanted Greenhouse, his face twisting in disdain as he thought about working. Neville could already see Harry trying to think about how to get out of the work, and he was surprised at his relief that Harry would be gone soon. Harry uttered out an excuse, something about his own work that he had to get done, and excused himself quickly and efficiently from the greenhouse.

Neville took in a deep calming breath, filling his lungs with the earthy humid air as he felt relief at Harry being gone. He turned to the work yet to be done, and allowed himself a smile.

He was alone, again.

He couldn’t be happier.

***

Draco narrowed his eyes in irritation. There was only a month or so left until the students would arrive, and Draco had secured the creatures he needed for his courses and solidified what he had needed to teach for the year. He had turned to his main side hobby, potion-making, for entertainment.

He supposed he should be helping the other staff prepare for the year, but despite their polite conversation and _pleasant_ interactions the other staff members had rebuffed any sort of close friendly relationship; Draco had fallen back to brewing basic medical potions to help with the supply store in the Infirmary to occupy his time. They were woefully low on everything, and Poppy (for some reason he was able to drop the Pomfrey much faster than he was able to drop the McGonagall) had requested Draco’s help in lieu of Slughorn due to his continued absence.

He cursed as he realized he was out of wormwood; he only had a window of a couple hours to find some before the mixture would become inert and useless. His own stores were obviously empty, and Slughorn had decided to cut it close and arrive with the potion stores a week before the term was going to start. He would have gone looking for Snape’s old stores, but the lower levels of the dungeons had partially collapsed in the Battle of Hogwarts, and the lake had flooded into the lower levels rendering them inaccessible below two levels below ground level.

And Draco hated swimming.

He realized, with further irritation, that he was going to have to go ask Longbottom if he had wormwood in his damned greenhouses. Draco had seen him positively retreating from him, and the other staff members, at almost every opportunity that he could. Draco did notice however, that he treated Draco almost the same as all the other staff members: with pure disinterest.

Draco supposed having an aunt that had tortured his parents into insanity hadn’t particularly helped.

He didn’t remember much of Neville’s personality other than the fact that he was a craven child, he had been much too busy bullying him the majority of their childhood to learn what his actual personality had been like, but he didn’t remember him being this… quiet.

The walk to the greenhouses was without incident, and Draco realized that Longbottom had been the one staff member who hadn’t requested his help, or Flitwick’s, at some point with the magics that came with his post.

He found the gate wide open, left open by Potter who he had seen from a distance sauntering towards the Quidditch Pitch. There were new subtle spells and wards around the greenhouses and Draco hummed in appreciation, Longbottom obviously knew what he was doing when it came to warding the greenhouses.

He found him in Greenhouse Three, gently moving a Whisperbush from its pot to the ground. Draco watched, enraptured. There was a gentleness and a vulnerability on Longbottom’s face that Draco was relatively sure he hadn’t seen before, a calmness that Draco hadn’t realized was missing until just this moment. It was enhanced by the fact that the Whisperbush was minorly luminescent, the glow off of Longbottom was beautiful.

Draco blushed in a way that was surprising, and he felt like this was an incredibly intimate moment that he didn’t want Longbottom to know he had seen. He back tracked up to the entrance gate of the Greenhouses, and loudly moved the gate. Within seconds Longbottom was at the door of his Greenhouse, all traces of that moment gone from his face.

“Change your mind Har- oh. Malfoy.” Longbottom said, his voice going from playfully weary to… something less welcoming.

Draco sighed.

“That isn’t my name anymore.”


	2. The House of Courage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited the first chapter to be a little less grammatically messy, and changed a few small facts (nothing that changes the story big time, but might be worth a reread).

“That isn’t my name anymore.” Draco drawled, sick of explaining this to every wizard or witch who referred to his previous family name.

He was also sick of the argument that often occurred after his explanation, but he would hold on getting angry beforehand.

Longbottom looked like his interest was piqued, but he didn’t say anything. Or rather, Draco thought he did; the man wasn’t exactly easy to read. His face had stayed impassive, but he leaned ever so slightly against the doorframe which Draco at least read as him not planning on walking away.

If Longbottom wasn’t going to say anything but also not walk away, it was an opportunity for Draco to keep talking and Draco never turned down an opportunity for exposition; especially exposition that was about himself.

“I haven’t been a Malfoy for years. If you’re a member of the 28 and haven’t heard about it, you’ve been living under a rock.” Malfoy said, calculatingly flicking a spare hair back from where it had fallen into his face. “Where have you been that you missed the disinheritance of the sole Malfoy heir?”

“What year did it happen?” Neville said, still rather impassive. Draco thought he might detect amusement, or maybe satisfaction, somewhere in his tone. It was rare that Draco couldn’t read some kind of emotion on someone’s voice, and he certainly hadn’t expected it from Longbottom.

“Four years ago. Shortly after my father’s trial, and shortly before he was executed.” Draco frowned. He found the entire memory of his disinheritance unpleasant, and despite the fact that he had brought it up he was mildly irritated at having to remember his father’s final days. How instead of letting his own beloved pureblood line continue Lucius Malfoy had chosen to strip Draco of the Malfoy name and appoint nobody in his place rather than allow the son who had betrayed him to continue the line. How upon stripping him of his ancestral magic and giving it to nobody else, the Malfoy properties had sealed themselves up and promptly disappeared from wherever they were; likely forever depriving Wizarding Britain of a chunk of its history and magical holdings.

“Africa.”

Draco shook his head, he had gotten lost in his angry memories and hadn’t been expecting a reply. He scuffed his foot on the dirt path, kicking up a small cloud of dust, and gave Longbottom a look of confusion.

“What?”

“Africa. I was in Africa. Ignoring news from Britain and the Sacred 28.” Neville said, equally as disinterested as before other than making quotation marks in the air around “Sacred 28.”

“Ignoring the news?! You’re the heir of the Longbottom Bloodline!” Draco said, for a moment forgetting that the business of the Sacred 28 wasn’t his business anymore.

“The Sacred 28 and the attitudes of them are archaic, and if you didn’t forget Draco,” Longbottom spat out, showing open emotion for the first time that Draco had seen since their return to Hogwarts, “their attitudes got a _lot_ of bloody people _killed._ Now, you’ve come down to my greenhouses, what the hell do you want?”

Draco swallowed, taken aback by the acidity of Longbottom’s tone. He hadn’t meant to provoke the man into anger… just prod him a bit. Draco often made this mistake, he always had. He always had to poke a prod.

“I…” Draco faltered, pulling back the confrontational tone he had slipped into his voice, “I need wormwood. I’m brewing Sleeping Draughts for Poppy.”

Longbottom didn’t reply, instead he simply pursed his lips and walked down to the end of the line. He jerked his head in a motion to indicate that Draco should follow him. As intimidating as he was, and as uncomfortable as this situation was, Draco still found time to appreciate the view from where he walked behind him.

Longbottom? More like Nicebottom. Whatever he had been doing in Africa had suited him. He didn’t remember him being anything more than average looking back in sixth or seventh year, take away his exhaustion and a layer of dirt and he had grown up positively… well… hunky. Hunky was the only word he could think of to describe him. Longbottom stopped for a moment to lift a ceramic pot with both arms, showing off his… considerable biceps.

Draco was pleased that muggle words and muggle fashions had become so popular as of late. Those jeans that Longbottom was wearing were giving Draco a pretty good view of… many things.

Draco gave himself a small cough as they crossed the threshold of the greenhouse; he hadn’t come down here to ogle the man. He was mildly disgusted that he was finding Longbottom of all people attractive in the first place, of all the families in the Sacred 28 the Longbottoms were one of the most hated by the Malfoys. Only the Weasleys were disliked more.

Draco supposed with the loss of the Malfoy holdings he could drop the old hatreds too. And if dropping those old hatreds involved… appreciating parts of Longbottom that he hadn’t previously thought about, well, that was simply something he would have to live with.

But not focus on it.

He was here for the wormwood, not plain wood of the flesh. With a final look of appreciation at his broad shoulders as he bent down and set down the pot he had been carrying, Draco let his arousal go.

“I’m surprised Poppy is letting you brew this for her, I know it’s a simple potion but she usually has high standards.” Longbottom said, softly enough that Draco almost missed it. “It isn’t Living Death, but its close enough you could hurt someone if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Draco chuckled; Longbottom really hadn’t been paying attention to the news of Britain in the past years. It had been quite the scandal at the time.

“I trained as a Healer. I think I’m up to par.” Draco had gone through the training to become a Healer, and actually been quite good at it. It felt good to help people, or rather he believed it would have had anyone been willing to hire an ex-Death Eater. The remnants of the Order had been quite willing to take in someone trained in medical magic, and someone who knew how the Death Eaters worked. It had helped that he had nowhere else to go.

Longbottom hummed in acknowledgement, but stayed silent and unresponsive. Draco knew that most people had been shocked to find out that the son of the Malfoys had tried to become a Healer, but Longbottom didn’t show as much.

Draco tried not to look at his ass.

***

Neville tried not to slow down his harvesting of the wormwood. He knew his hands stopped their rhythmic plucking of the leaves for a moment, but he was relatively sure there was no other indication of his shock.

Draco Malfoy, a Healer? The thought of it was rather disturbing. He couldn’t imagine he had any sort of bedside manner. Even more disturbing was the thought of Draco Malfoy as well… not a Malfoy. The boy he had known had built his entire identity on the Malfoy name.

“How much do you need? I imagine it’s a considerable amount, I can’t imagine the great Malf-“ Neville stopped, stumbling over Draco’s lack of a family name, “I can’t imagine the great Draco trudging all the way down to these dirty greenhouses for a single cauldron’s worth of wormwood.”

Neville looked over his shoulder to see Draco’s reaction, and decided to ignore that he had clearly caught Draco looking at his ass. The pale blond at least had the decency to pretending that he had been looking at the plants that Neville was crouched next to. Neville wasn’t surprised that he had been looking, he knew objectively that he had a nice body, he was just more surprised that Malfoy ( _Draco, he must call him Draco_ ) was interested in blokes.

Same-sex relations were a bit of a taboo with purebloods. Neville’s heterosexuality certainly had made navigating the very shallow waters of pureblood ocean much easier than if he had not been. They weren’t banished from society per se, but pureblood lines needed heirs and heirs needed heterosexual marriages. Yet another way that pureblood society was behind, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan’s wedding by all accounts had been the social event of the year for the rest of Wizarding Ireland.

Any event where Dean Thomas was in charge of fireworks was due to be memorable.

“I only need a small amount for today; I’m testing the viability of some of my ingredients. It’s been a few years since I bought them, and I’d rather not waste a full batch’s worth of ingredients only to find out they aren’t as potent as needed. Would be inconvenient for Poppy to not be able to force students to take naps.” Draco drawled, although Neville could tell he wasn’t sounding that way to put on airs; Draco just had a naturally snooty tone to his voice.

Neville also didn’t disagree with his reasoning, this wasn’t the Hogwarts of old days; this was Hogwarts on a budget. Their stores were far from bottomless, Neville suspected that was part of the reason they were only bringing in the First Years: he was relatively sure they couldn’t afford the supplies for a fully occupied school; they were already relying on students to be buying more of their supplies than normal.

Neville chose not to mention to Draco that they were in his personal greenhouse. There was a different greenhouse that he meant to teach the First Years in, and there they would hopefully grow the stores for the Potions classes and other miscellaneous supplies needed for the school. He felt that providing top level ingredients for Hogwarts’ medical needs were was of top priority, and it wasn’t like he used an excessive amount of wormwood anyways.

He likely had enough for the medical needs of the castle, or at least a few batches of Sleeping Draught for a well-meaning Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

Neville stood again with the basket full of a health supply of wormwood. This would get Draco out of his hair and out of his greenhouses for now, and it would tide him over for a few batches. Hopefully he wouldn’t cross the borders of the greenhouses for a while, although he realized with a quiet frown that he might be enabling him to come raid the houses whenever he was low on ingredients. Not that Neville entirely blamed him; he himself would rather brave this newer quieter Draco rather than the often fussy and always fawning Slughorn.

This had gone on long enough, he was sure he could quietly teach a room of children but thinking of how much he _didn’t_ hate Draco was taxing him beyond what he could handle.

He nearly threw the basket into his arms in his haste to get Draco out of his greenhouse. He had no ill will toward him, no more than he had felt towards Harry; he simply just wanted him out of his space.

He didn’t hate Draco, as much as he wished he could hate the man and treat him badly, but Draco _had_ been on the other side of a war. He couldn’t rightly sit and pretend that he was going to exchange pleasantries with the man anytime soon. People had been killed, peoples’ lives had been ruined, and Draco and Neville had been on opposite ends of their wands.

“This should be enough for a few small batches, certainly enough to stock up Madam Pomfrey. Good day Professor Draco.” Neville said, trying to look at stony as possible. He knew he had trouble showing emotion on the best of days, so he hoped it gave him an advantage that time and got the man quickly and quietly out of his sight. He was surprised to see something a little like hurt on Draco’s face, so quick he almost thought he imagined it, and felt a little bad for some reason. He didn’t quite know why though.

“Longbottom.” Draco said, bowing his head politely. The blond gracefully turned around, but Neville could see from the roll of his shoulders that he had done something to hurt his feelings. He remembered Draco stalking from Harry on many occasions after they’d had a confrontation, although this Draco wasn’t stomping away but gliding as quickly and gracefully as possible.

Neville winced, he hadn’t meant to offend the man.

He was just better off far away from him.

***

Three weeks later Draco had nearly forgotten his last interaction with Longbottom. Nearly.

He wasn’t holding onto hopes that he and Longbottom were going to be best friends. They had far too much negative history for that; the obvious dismissal in the middle of what Draco had thought was developing into something like a conversation, something Draco was parched for among disinterested staff members, was rather painful. He had dismissed him without any sort of interest in what Draco had been saying, as if he hadn’t just spilled a particularly interesting set of facts about himself.

Longbottom was a pureblood, he had to know the implication of the things that Draco had done since the war ended.

But he hadn’t cared, which would have been refreshing if he had been willing to react with Draco beyond basic pleasantries. Again, Draco was mildly comforted by the fact that he could tell Longbottom was equally uncomfortable around anyone else, he only seemed to willingly interact with Flitwick occasionally at breakfast and whenever Potter and him seemed to cross paths.

Potter.

Now that was a can of worms. He had descended upon McGonagall’s office with a fury when he had realized that Potter was going to be on staff and nobody had informed him. He didn’t particularly care about Potter anymore, the war was long past. Potter however, very much cared about Draco, and over the past few years made that readily apparent whenever they met in public. He hadn’t moved beyond the rivalry of their youth, and Draco was sure had hexed him in public a couple times. The fact that McGonagall had failed to mention his employment to Draco before he had already accepted the position and helped McGonagall set up her entire damn school had very much rubbed Draco the wrong way.

Being McGonagall, she had let him rant and rave and pace about her office for the better part of a half-hour before she raised a hand that Draco took as a sign for him to silence himself. Which he did, of course; she was Professor McGonagall. She had informed him within a few sentences that it was last minute, they weren’t meant to reinstitute Quidditch or anything beyond basic broom work this year. The Board of Governors had last minute ham-handedly rammed it into the curriculum, and had forced Potter into the position.

By her tight smile, Draco could tell that only her affection for Potter had stopped her from flaying Potter alive for what was obviously his doing.

When Draco had asked why she had let him go on for so long she had simply looked back down at the document she had been working on and stated simply:

“You looked like you needed it Mister… Draco.” She had said, and dismissed him. She was good at that.

They only had a little under a week until the students were due to arrive, and working on the wards with Flitwick and the rest of the staff had been taking up much of Draco’s time.

Voldemort and his forces had irreparably shattered much of the magic of the wards on their way in, and six years of disrepair and Ministry magic cleaning had destroyed the remainder as surely as the plants in Longbottom’s greenhouses.

He got up in the morning and walked to the edge of the grounds, began working on the intense runes and charmwork that would give at least a modicum of protection to the grounds until it was time for the evening meal, then fell into bed exhausted. Rinse, repeat.

People over the years talked about the wards of Hogwarts like they were magic that could potentially be recreated. The staff quarters of Hogwarts were a good metaphor for how the wards of Hogwarts had come to be: over the years one staff member had left a magical chair that kept your tea warm while you sat in it, another left a candle that was ever burning and was only scented of chamomile when it could sense you were stressed, yet another left a piano that played a little tune when somebody was at the door. The wards were little pieces of unique magic that nobody could reproduce, because nobody had recorded how exactly it was done by who over what period of time. Little improvements made by hundreds of witches and wizards over hundreds of years, unintentionally combined and strengthened in ways that nobody had predicted. Those little pieces of magic had combined into wards that protected the grounds from harmful creatures crossing its borders, from being easily findable, and many other things that everybody had taken for granted until a Dark Wizard had irreparably and viciously shattered them.

At the forefront of Draco’s mind, and McGonagall’s once he brought it up, was the anti-Apparation wards. The only other place in Britain that was Unapparatable was the Ministry and Azkaban, and Draco wasn’t particularly shocked when they refused to divulge to an ex-Death Eater how exactly those wards worked, so he had been working with Flitwick to attempt to recreate them, at least good enough to stop any random person from Apparating onto the grounds without them knowing about it.

There would only be First Years, they could probably wait a couple years before they needed to worry about any First Year having the skill to the Apparate away by themselves.

They had been able to put down a beacon of sorts (Flitwick had aptly named it the Apparation Beacon) near McGonagall’s office in an unused classroom that would pull any Apparation that was aimed at anywhere in the Castle proper to that room. They could at least control where people entered the castle, Flitwick predicted only a witch or wizard of Dumbledore or Voldemort’s strength could overcome the Beacon and pop in wherever they wanted. Draco didn’t tell him that was exactly what he was afraid of, one day. They couldn’t stop anyone from Apparating out, but the nature of the Beacon made it incredibly painful if someone did outside of the Beacon room. It wouldn’t injure them, but it would be enough to discourage anyone from Apparating from anywhere but the Beacon room without a very good reason.

It wouldn’t stop an army from Apparating into the room.

It definitely wouldn’t have even slowed down the Death Eaters.

Draco wished an Anti-Disapparation Jinx would work, much like the Death Eaters had laid on Hogsmeade before the invasion of Hogwarts, but the Jinx interfered with many of the other magics of the school and had to be redone once a month; the process of spreading the Jinx over the entire castle grounds often would take far too long.

“I trust the wards are coming along nicely Draco.” Headmaster Minerva McGonagall said from behind Draco, startling him nearly to death. She had a habit of sneaking up on him in the hallways when he least expected it, and he hadn’t yet been able to figure out if she was doing it on purpose. She had a dry hint of a grin, so Draco had the inkling that she at least found a small amount of humor in it whether she had meant to spook him or not. She had to at least be aware she had done it.

“Yes Headmaster McGonagall, I believe all countermeasures for Apparation are as good as they’re going to get frankly. We just don’t have the knowledge of how to cast the same wards with the same power and longevity, and Madam Pince has been no help since we returned to Hogwarts.” Draco said, frowning. Madam Pince and the nature of her existence was an entire other issue.

McGonagall frowned. Draco expected her to be unhappy about the wards and their lack of progress on them, which is exactly why he had been avoiding her as much as possible the past week, but he hadn’t expected her to show it so readily on her face.

“Draco, I believe I have expressed my desire to be called Minerva, at least in private.” She lilted out, her Scottish accent often became stronger when she was lecturing someone he had noted. She pointedly ignored the look of distaste that he had purposefully put on his face, and set to prodding and casting small diagnostic spells to try and see what exactly himself and Flitwick had done. She was really proving to be quite insistent on the matter.

“Your spell work has really been most exemplary; Filius has remarked that he is quite impressed at your skill for someone less than a decade out of school.” She said off-handedly. If she noticed Draco furiously blushing at the compliment, she pretended not to notice. He wasn’t used to such praise, and his blush deepened when he realized he was damn near preening at the smallest of compliments from his former Headmistress and Charms instructor.

Draco coughed into his hand.

“Thank you Headmistress. I think we’ve tackled most of the large projects that needed to be accomplished. Of course the wards will need to be worked on more to even be a mere shadow of what they were…” Draco trailed off for a moment as McGonagall got a look in her eyes as if remembering why exactly the wards were gone, even though Draco had attempted to dance around the issue, “however, I do believe the school to be fit for habitation for a number of first-years. As long as we keep them out of certain areas, but warning them should take care of that.”

“Warnings at the Beginning of the Year Feast never seemed to stop you or Potter, or a great number of other students.” McGonagall smiled playfully, no malice meant in mentioning of Draco and other students’ indiscretions over the years. If anything, it seemed to perk her up out of her darker thoughts. “Perhaps I will consult Mr. Potter on what would have stopped him as a child.”

Draco was rather sure nothing would have stopped the boy who rode a herd of thestrals to the Ministry to battle dark wizards, but he likely would be the best source of information other than the remaining Weasley twin.

“Take the next few days off Draco, the first year of teaching is always considerably more tiring than anyone ever expects. You’ll need the rest.” McGonagall said, waving her hand dismissively at him to send him away. “I don’t want to see you sneaking around the castle doing work either.”

Draco frowned as he had intended to do just that. This castle was far from being able to pretend to be the majesty that was Hogwarts.

“I am quite serious, relax until the start of the new term. There will be plenty of work to be done once the year begins. Feel free to come to my office for tea if you desire in the coming days.” She said, whirling on the spot and setting a good pace back to her office without waiting for a reply.

Draco huffed indignantly; he didn’t know what to do with himself. He began walking towards the dungeons; Slughorn had arrived yesterday with the potion stores. McGonagall couldn’t catch him if he was brewing potions in his quarters.

***

The first years all stood in a row, their faces one and all a mask of terror. There were seventy-four eleven-year-olds, about thirty more than they had expected to actually attend this year, and each of them looked terrified. It was a rather strange sight, Neville thought, since there were no students at the tables behind the line of soon to be Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Slytherins to encourage them or to playfully jeer at their rivals. The Great Hall was strangely quiet, and Neville found it quite unsettling. He was happy it was the only year it would be like this.

McGonagall called the first name.

“Altierre, Abigail!”

The shaking first year walked forward, her black pigtails visibly vibrating from the nervous trembling of her body, and sat on the stool that McGonagall had instructed them to sit on. She procured the Sorting Hat, somehow saved from where Neville had dropped it after drawing the Sword of Gryffindor six years previously, and placed it on the girl’s head. Neville thought the hat frowned at him but it might have been his imagination. It had certainly had something rude to say to him when he had seen it in her office two weeks previously.

“Ravenclaw!” the hat said less than half a minute later, and although the room was nearly empty compared to years past Neville felt like the room was full of applause as the entire staff jumped to its feet and cheered on the shocked looking Abigail. Flitwick nearly fell over he was clapping so hard; Neville knew he had wagered rather heavily with Slughorn over which of their houses, Ravenclaw or Slytherin respectively, would gain the first student of the year. Neville had kept to himself how amusing he found it that they had discounted Ophelia Marigold, the new History of Magic teacher and Head of House for Hufflepuff or Neville’s own Gryffindor house as the winners from the start, but he supposed they had been right.

He had also been entirely occupied with the fact that Minerva had gave him Head of House and not been willing to take no for an answer.

He clapped along to the students receiving their houses half-heartedly, but as the list grew shorter he was beginning to worry. They were fifteen students in, and there hadn’t been a single Gryffindor. He knew he wasn’t the only one to notice either, he noticed a couple of the faculty members looking worriedly at the Hat and Neville himself respectively.

Maybe the Hat really was holding a grudge.

Each student that ticked by made him more nervous. The count grew to twenty. Then twenty-five. A pit formed in his stomach, was Gryffindor House never going to come back?

“Grant, Mason!” McGonagall called, summoning forth the first child who didn’t look nervous. If anything, he looked incredibly excited but Neville knew without a doubt that the child had never been surer of anything in his life.

“Gryffindor!” The Hat cried, barely even touching the boy’s head before it shrieked his fate. The boy’s face lit up into a look of pure jubilance that stabbed like a knife deep into his chest, reminding him of a night in September thirteen years ago.

Neville leaped to his feet, surprising everyone around him but nobody more than himself as he raucously clapped. He felt something warm in his chest that he hadn’t felt in a very _very_ long time. He hadn’t expected the tears he was fighting back in his eyes, and yet there they were. He noticed McGonagall smiling at him from the corner of his eye, but he was too focused on his first House member to really care.

Then there were more Gryffindors, seven by the time they reached a mousey but proud looking girl with pale skin and dark hair.

“Rosier, Alma!” Neville’s head perked up at the surname of a well-known Death Eater surname. The girl walked haughtily forward, and a slight lull in the energy of the room as others obviously recognized the name didn’t slow her pace to the stool. The hush deepened after McGonagall placed the hat, and it sat there for over two minutes. Neville frowned; he had expected the Hat to shout Slytherin quickly. Maybe she was intelligent; plenty of Death Eaters had come from Ravenclaw.

“Gryffindor!” The Hat shouted, and Neville took a moment to blink in surprise. A Pureblood of the Sacred 28 in Gryffindor? Especially a Rosier, the only Sacred 28 Purebloods who regularly entered Gryffindor were Weasleys and Longbottoms. And Neville supposed, as few of them as there were: Potters.

He only took a moment to consider this before he found himself clapping. Sirius Black had been from a family of less than stellar repute, and he had been one of the most Gryffindor wizards he had ever met.

Rosier looked slightly surprised at Neville’s reaction, giving him a strange look, but she took off the hat with a strange amount of grace for an eleven-year-old and glided over to the sparsely populated Gryffindor table.

Neville didn’t much notice any unique aspects of any other students, other than the fact that like Gryffindors they looked a bit less nervous than their other first years. By the time the Sorting was over, Neville had a table of ten bouncing eleven-year-old Gryffindors. They were by far the smallest house. Slytherin had fifteen students, Ravenclaw twenty-one, and Hufflepuff pulled in a whopping twenty-eight students.

During the Feast, the quietest Feast he had ever attended, Neville overheard McGonagall discussing with Flitwick and Slughorn about adjusting the schedule to deal with the strange distribution of students.

The Hat gave a lovely sonnet about togetherness, not repeating past mistakes, and new beginnings. If it kept shooting him aggressive looks Neville chalked it up to his imagination.

It was six years ago, and he wasn’t about to start a blood feud with a hat.

He kept catching the students pointedly looking or just blatantly pointing at him and talking amongst themselves. Was this what it was like for his teachers when he was in school, but times seven with a full Great Hall of students?

“Blimey Neville, they seem interested in us don’t they?” Harry whispered from his left. Neville had somehow failed to notice that Harry had sat next to him, so focused had he been on the Sorting, but he found that he seemed less grating on his psyche today. Harry seemed a bit reserved, which if he was reacting the same as when he was in school meant he was upset about something. “Reckon they’re talking about the heroes of the Battle of Hogwarts.”

Neville snorted, for once mention of the Battle of Hogwarts caused him to feel a spot of amusement rather than panic. Leave it to Harry Potter to think the students were talking about his great accomplishments rather than gossiping about who their teachers were. There were a lot of Muggleborns this year; most of them probably didn’t even know who Harry was. Rather than answer the raised brow that Harry had given him in response to his snort Neville decided to become exceptionally interested in the meal before him.

Neville had nearly left the Great Hall when McGonagall caught up with him. He had been hurrying to go feed Trevor, who as he had grown larger had begun to get more insistent with his feedings; the toad had a tendency to be incredibly grumpy if his schedule was broken. Neville just knew his best friend was sitting in his quarters, angrily glaring at the door from where he was likely perched on his bedside table.

“Where do you think you’re going Neville?” McGonagall said, there being some joke here that Neville hadn’t caught on to yet.

“The Feast is nearly over, I was going to return to my rooms. I feel like a nap might be in order.” Neville said, patting his stomach. He really had eaten a lot, he didn’t have much to say to Harry and had used food to break up the conversation for most of the time.

“Who is going to take the students to their rooms?” McGonagall said, still amused.

“The Prefects? Ah. The Prefects.” Neville said, catching on. There were no Fifth Years or higher, where they picked Prefects to help lead the House. “I’m going to be leading them myself I suppose.” Neville said sheepishly. He really should have thought about that earlier. Nobody else would be able to lead the First Years to the new House Room but himself, McGonagall, and Potter. The former Gryffindors had constructed the Common Room themselves. They would share its location with the rest of the staff eventually, just as the other members of the faculty would share the location of the other rooms to them eventually. Only McGonagall knew all the Common Rooms for now.

Neville strongly suspected the Hufflepuffs were in the same place, he knew the House of Badgers was situated in the upper levels of the dungeons and had likely been spared from flooding. Otherwise, both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Towers had been destroyed and the Slytherin Dungeons had been flooded.

Neville gathered up his students who for the first time since being Sorted had fallen quiet. He saw them all looking up at him with rapt attention where he stood at the head of the almost comically empty Gryffindor table as if they expected him to give some sort of grand speech. Neville wordlessly waved his arm, unable to think of anything particularly special to say. The students looked surprised, but if they objected to him not saying anything profound they didn’t voice it.

Neville led them quietly through the halls of Hogwarts. They layout was mostly the same, but the castle did seem quiet. There were far fewer portraits than his days here which was perhaps one of the greatest losses of the Battle; only a handful of the thousands of living portraits had survived. No more First Year Gryffindors would get the privilege of having a judgmental talking to from the Fat Lady who for over a hundred years had guarded the entrance to the Common Room in Gryffindor Tower.

Harry had wanted to place the new Gryffindor Common Room in the highest tower in the Castle in true Harry fashion, but Neville had only spared a moment to remember being an overweight eleven-year-old and how the journey to the tower from the lower floors had been an unmitigated Hell. He had been teased mercilessly for it, and he decided that none of his students would go through the same experience.

He had to pick a spot that wasn’t inconvenient, but was also out of the way enough that other Houses wouldn’t find the Common Room by chance. It was normal to know at least the general area of other Houses’ Common Rooms by year Five or Six, but part of the magic of Hogwarts for the first few years was fiercely guarding the secret of your Common Room.

Neville was also still fastidiously avoiding other staff members whenever possible, so that narrowed his preferred area to near the greenhouses.

That’s how he found himself with ten eleven year olds alone in a corridor near the entrance of the Castle, and not far from the exit closest to the Herbology Greenhouses. The corridor was almost better described as a long balcony; one of the walls was comprised of floor to ceiling windows that were thrown open to the warm September night. The corridor had a couple unused classrooms, but otherwise had nothing in it, and ended in a sturdy looking brick wall.

A brick wall that you could walk through if you spoke the right password, but that would definitely feel quite solid otherwise.

Neville spared a look at the children as they entered the clearly dead-end hallway, their faces all obviously confused and perhaps nervous on where they were going. Neville picked up the pace and broke into a run reminiscent of the pace families often took their first time at Platform 9 ¾. He spared one more look over his shoulder as he neared the wall; most of the kids had stopped and were giving Neville looks of horror at his impending crash into the wall.

“Lion Heart!” Neville cried loudly enough for them all to hear him.

He passed through the wall which gave no resistance but felt like warm water, and entered the Gryffindor Common Room.

Neville had always loved the Gryffindor Common Room, its squishy armchairs and comfortable alcoves had always been a sight that Neville had felt relieved by as he retreated from the harsher environment of the Castle, and he had done his best with Harry and McGonagall to recreate that feeling. Harry and Neville didn’t seem to agree on much these days, but when Neville had said he wanted to recreate the general feel of the old Tower, Harry’s face had split into a giant smile. McGonagall had done perhaps the most work, despite letting Neville take the lead on planning, and the Common Room’s spells were definitely up to snuff. They had recreated the squishy armchairs and the cushioned reading alcoves, but Neville had added a number of plants.

The part Neville liked the most, and the reason that Neville had chosen this for the Common Room, was that there was a walled courtyard attached. A couple of basic illusion charms made it seem like part of the roof when viewed from above. He had even planted his own personal Tranquil Rhododendrons, a large flowering bush that had a light calming effect around it, and a variety of other non-magical flowers and bushes. He thought it would be a good place to come and calm down or something after a hard day.

Overall he was very proud of the work that the three of them had done over the past week.

Neville turned and waited, and finally after around twenty seconds of waiting Rosier finally crossed the threshold. Her face was guarded, but not at all afraid, just like a true Gryffindor should be. Neville could feel himself smiling, a semi-foreign feeling on his face lately, which grew larger when Grant followed shortly behind her. Within a minute, the rest of the Gryffindors had joined them in the room, its cozy interior obviously putting the Gryffindors at ease.

“You’re the first generation to walk these halls in six years.” Neville found himself saying to the rapt crowd of eleven year olds quite without meaning to, “The House of Gryffindor is the house of courage they say, of the Light and heroism.”

Neville noticed that some of the children looked nervous, and some looked proud. Neville felt a little nauseous.

“I don’t agree with that.” All the children looked surprised now, even Rosier who he could tell had been trying to school her emotions all night. “Yes, there have been a lot of heroic Gryffindors, there are plenty of those, but there have been plenty of monsters as well. Voldemort was brought back to kill hundreds by a Gryffindor.” Only a couple of the children flinched at the mention of Voldemort’s name. Neville still had trouble saying it, his wizarding upbringing still made him want to say He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. “Bravery in itself is a weapon, one you must wield carefully. Bravery can cause you to save your friends... or to kill them.”

Neville swallowed, he hadn’t meant to get so heavy with these first-years on his first night with them.

“Just remember that the Hat saw something in you, something powerful. It saw the potential for courage.” Neville took a moment and swallowed. “Classes begin in two days. I will be in the Common Room in the morning for questions and to show you around, but otherwise these dormitories are a place away from the faculty and your home for the next seven years. Girls’ dormitories are the staircase on the left; boy’s dormitories are on the right. I know it will be difficult to not stay up all night, but I would advise you go to bed. Sleep well.”

Neville turned and left without waiting.

The year had begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all so much for reading! Tell me what you think of me!
> 
> Black Lives Matter.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is a side project that's been bouncing around for awhile!


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